play crack the sky
by grazed fingertips
Summary: They'd never admit it, but they lived for moments like this.


so i started watching shameless on friday, and it's now 11pm on a monday night and i've just finished season three and i'm such a fucking wreck inside it isn't even funny. but yeah i switched my internet off and crafted this little fucker in just under an hour and i'm not even sure what the fuck it is but it's my first ever shameless fic thingy like idk i'm pretty much in love with the idea and character concept that is mickey milkovich and fucking gallovich and just please enjoy thank you!

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They lay there, backs pressed against the cold hard concrete, the streetlights setting the night ablaze. They'd never admit it, but they lived for moments like this. The pure, untainted silence that sliced through the night like a blade. The way their breath fogged the air and slowly disappeared into the night sky, ceasing to exist as quickly as it started. How they made their own constellations, their own stars, and their own worlds. How they escaped so easily, so silently, so beautifully. How, for those few hours before dawn, they were their own Gods, and nothing could stop them. There was no Terry, no Svetlana, and no fucking fetus inside her belly. No Southside, no homophobia, no breadline for them to dance on, no school, no army, no fucking expectations and nothing for them to spiral down into. No trap for them to get caught in. There was nothing but them and the sky and the joint they shared, fingertips brushing as they passed it back and forth, lazily and haphazardly and so fucking poetically that it made Mickey bite his cheek a little.

He remembered the day that he took Gallagher to the baseball field; shotgunned a beer with him, then got fucked by him in the pits. Asked him after, when he got all soppy, if he wanted to look for shooting stars or some shit, a smirk on his face and a fist the size of the whole fucking world wedged in the hollow of his chest. He never thought he'd actually do it. Be lying on his back next to Firecrotch with a spliff between his lips, the shitty roach blisteringly hot on the inhale, with his ankle, knee, hip and elbow pressed up against Gallagher's and burning at the contact. He was the best fucking mistake he'd ever made. His biggest regret in all the right and all the oh so very wrong ways. He glanced across at him. Gallagher, no, _Ian_. With his fucking freckles and curls and the stupid grin on his face. His eyes that Mickey would swear fucking _twinkled_ or some crappy gay shit like that, glassy and wide, pupils so blown they looked like black holes, and flitting from star to fucking star so fast it made his head spin just watching.

He passed the joint to the kid, folding his arms behind his head and exhaling slowly, smoke curling and twisting into the air, eyes squinting as he stared up at the sky. If he wanted to, if he really, _really_ wanted to, he could probably pinpoint the moment he fell in love with Ian fucking Gallagher and realized that he was down the creek without a paddle, with a fucking hole the size of Timbuktu or whatever the fuck it's called in the bottom of his goddamn boat to boot. Only if he really, really, really fucking wanted to though. If he didn't mind the ache in his leg and his fucking ass cheek that came with it, the slight throbbing in the side of his head where Terry pistol-whipped him after he caught them together. The sinking feeling in the hollow of his chest as he remembered that he had a wife and a fucking kid on the way at home and neither supposedly dirty, filthy, behind-closed-doors-love nor all the fucking drug money in the world was going to change that. Was going to make that go away and hand him a brand new life where he could be Mickey Milkovich to the core, and sweep away the fucking cobwebs and incinerate the skeletons and leave all his doors unlocked and open for the world to see.

And the sensations hit him all at once, the aching and the throbbing and the drop in his chest that made him swallow thickly, because the moment he realized that Ian Gallagher saw past the cobwebs and dismissed the skeletons and had keys of his very own to all of Mickey's locked doors, snuck in and stole his set and made copies when he was sleeping, was the moment he realized that he was fucking in love with the kid. That this little persistent fucker has snuck in and somehow made himself a permanent fixture in his life, and the chances of Mickey ever finding anyone like that again, anyone so willing to be close to him, in the whole entire fucking world was next to none. But it was terrifying. So fucking terrifying, having Ian look at him, _really_ look at him. Past the grime and the guns and the swearing and the threats and the 'FUCK U-UP' inked into his skin; past the name and the risks and the constant stream of 'no's that fell from his lips. Past every barrier that he'd ever put up. Past every wall he'd built, every lie he'd told, every secret, every bullshit fucking excuse. And he'd done it like it was the easiest thing in the world. Like cracking Mickey fucking Milkovich open was something that he did in his spare fucking time and was as easy as unlocking the door to the store every Saturday morning. And every time he looked at him like that and said something softly, something meaningful and heartfelt and oh so Ian Gallagher, it was another nail in Mickey's hands and feet because fuck the kid was crucifying him. Stripping him bare and stringing him up and exposing him for what he really was; a scared kid who was drowning in his own head, his only real lifeline being the boy who'd wrapped his hand around his heart and wouldn't let it go.

And he swore a little as Ian nudged him, making his heart stutter all too fucking much, the kid propped up on his elbows with one hand pointed at the sky, joint a faint orange blip against the inky black.

"What, Gallagher?" he sighed, head lolling lightly to the side and staring up at him. He looked like Christmas had come early and it was actually kind of adorable.

"Shooting star." he said simply, grinning down at him, eyes all fucking alive and full of fucking hope and shit like that. "You gonna make a wish?"

He laughed a little, short and sharp and biting. But he paused before answering, mulled over the contents of his head, of all his memories, the good the bad and the shitty. And he concluded that while his life wasn't exactly fucking fantastic, while there were countless things he could improve about it… it wasn't half bad, being Mickey Milkovich, with 'FUCK U-UP' tattooed across his knuckles and a rap sheet as long as his arm plus a few, a shitty excuse for a dad and a dead mom, a Russian prostitute for a wife who made a living fucking other men and a baby on the way. They made him, well, him. And he had a kid who could see past all that and still find something in him to love, and that was, he decided, worth all that shit. So he reached up, fisted Ian's short ass hair and tugged him down, pressed a searing kiss to his lips and stole the spliff from him, taking a drag and grinning a little, shaking his head. "Nah. I'm good." And he really was, behind all those closed doors that only Ian could get past. And as long as Ian could get past them, he concluded, as Ian gave him this small lopsided knowing smile, he'd always be pretty damn good.


End file.
